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Toward a Lockean Unification of Formal and Traditional Epistemology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2020

Matthew Brandon Lee Open the ORCID record for Matthew Brandon Lee [Opens in a new window]  and
Paul Silva Jr.
Matthew Brandon Lee*
Affiliation:
Berry College, Mount Berry, GA, USA
Paul Silva Jr.
Affiliation:
University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
*
*Corresponding author. Email: mlee@berry.edu
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Abstract

A Lockean metaphysics of belief that understands outright belief as a determinable with degrees of confidence as determinates is supposed to effect a unification of traditional coarse-grained epistemology of belief with fine-grained epistemology of confidence. But determination of belief by confidence would not by itself yield the result that norms for confidence carry over to norms for outright belief unless belief and high confidence are token identical. We argue that this token-identity thesis is incompatible with the neglected phenomenon of “mistuned knowledge” – knowledge in the absence of rational confidence. We show how partial epistemological unification can be secured, even without token identity, given determination of outright belief by degrees of confidence. Finally, we suggest a direction for the pursuit of thoroughgoing epistemological unification.

Keywords

Lockean thesiscredal reductivismthreshold viewmistuned knowledgedeterminabledeterminate
Type
Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 111 - 129
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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